In order to achieve entanglement distribution at high rates it is desirable to either collect scattered light with a high numerical aperture (NA) lens, or to strongly couple atoms and photons in a resonant cavity. Practical architectures for strong coupling of atoms to photons often involve placing the atoms close to material surfaces. This is problematic when Rydberg states are used for quantum logic since these states are strongly perturbed by electric fields arising from surface charges. This renders nanophotonic devices for strong atom-photon coupling[1]}, [2]}, [3]}, [4]} challenging to incorporate in node architectures that utilize Rydberg state operations.
<FIGURE>